Religious
festivals,
holy days, seasonal days of celebration, etc.

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These days are variously called church calendar, ecclesiastical dates, fasting
days, festivals, holy days, sabbats, days of observance and seasonal days of
celebration, etc.

Listed below is a wide variety of holy days from religions past and
present. A few secular days are included as well. The list is intended to
show the wide diversity of religious belief. It is based on the year 1997.
We also have a list of holy days for the major
religions followed in North America for the current year and for a few
years in the future.

Some dates are fixed each year:

Christmas is always on December 25 (among Protestant and Roman Catholic denominations);
St. Valentine's day is on February 14.

Others vary slightly from year to year, depending upon the proximity to a leap year:

Wiccans, other Neo-Pagans and other aboriginal religions often celebrate:

the equinoxes in March and September when day and night are both 12 hours long.

Because the earth takes about 365.26 days to circle the sun, the date and time of the
solstices and equinoxes shift from year to year. They may occur on the 20, 21 or 23rd of
the month.

Other dates are computed according to a complex formula. The timing
of Easter Sunday shows its pagan roots, being based upon Sun and Moon worship. It falls on
the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21, the nominal date of the Spring
Equinox. It can fall on any date from March 22 to April 25th. The sequence is so
complicated that it takes 5.7 million years to repeat a cycle. Eastern Orthodox churches
sometimes celebrate Easter on the same day as the rest of Christianity. However if that
date does not follow Passover, then the Orthodox churches delay their Easter - sometimes
by over a month.